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Jordan lacks the oil of other Middle Eastern countries. So the small kingdom north of Saudi Arabia focuses instead on developing human resources more than natural resources. The strategy has produced an increasing number of entrepreneurs ready to tackle the challenges of a global economic crisis, two executives from the Business Development Center in Amman said March 26 at Thunderbird.
“Entrepreneurs make the impossible possible,” said Nayef Stetieh, president and founder of the nonprofit center that partners with Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz. “In the coming years with this financial crisis, the best way to get out of this downturn is to promote entrepreneurship.”
His center is doing its part through an array of programs that focus on small- and medium-sized business development, job creation and support services for women entrepreneurs. A $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development has allowed the center to send graduate-level Jordanian students to Thunderbird and bring Thunderbird students and professors to Amman for consulting and executive education services.
Business Development Center Vice President Maha Shawareb, who traveled with Stetieh to Thunderbird for a week of observation and partnership planning, said the focus on entrepreneurship has paid off in Jordan despite the financial crisis. “Jordanian exports have increased,” she said. “Local sales for our clients have increased. And unemployment rates have decreased.”
The center has numbers to back up these claims. Since it opened in 2005, the center has assisted 372 companies, issued 430 grants and provided employment and training opportunities for more than 2,000 young Jordanians. As a result of this work and other initiatives, the center has increased exports by $14.3 million to the United States and $65.8 million to other markets.
Stetieh said Jordan has long understood the benefits of investing in human resources. He said King Abdullah II has worked aggressively to establish the country as a hub of investment by creating a stable economy, a safe environment and a well-educated population. Jordan also maintains free-trade agreements with markets such as the United States and the European Union.
“Jordan has a lack of natural resources like oil and gas,” Stetieh said. “The major capital that we have is the human resource. We are capitalizing on this resource.”
He said this emphasis creates a rich environment to grow entrepreneurs, something the world will need as it tries to pull itself out of a rut. “People who know how to grow and expand a business will be in high demand,” he said.
Shawareb said the need for entrepreneurs with these skills has become urgent.
“It’s the time to be creative and innovative with services and products,” she said. “It’s the time for people to start thinking of new ways of doing things, and to take new ideas and commercialize them.”
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